Every day when a Plainsboro mother wakens, she is faced with the heart-wrenching reality that she’s separated from her children.

Bindu Philips, whose twin boys were allegedly kidnapped and harbored in India by her abusive ex-husband in 2008, shared her nightmare Thursday with a Congressional subcommittee on global human rights.

“I’m here because I can no longer fight the good fight on my own,” she said in her testimony. “I respectively request you the members of the Congress to help me make my voice heard in a way that shall be meaningful and allow me to be reunited with my children who need the love and the nurturing of their mother.”

In December 2008, when Philips was still married to her husband, Sunil Jacob, she took what she and her children believed was a family vacation to India, according to her testimony.

But while there, Jacob and his family allegedly deprived Philips from seeing her two children, who were 8 years old at the time, through verbal and physical assaults for approximately five months, she said.

Despite obtaining two court orders — one that gives her sole legal custody of the children and the other that states her sons need to be returned to the U.S. immediately — granted from the New Jersey Superior Court in 2009, Philips is unable to carry out the orders.

The issue lies in the fact that India is not a signatory of the Hague treatyon the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, which secures the prompt return of abducted children to their country of residence.

Philips’ testimony did not fall on deaf ears.

U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-Robbinsville, who is chairman of the House Global Human Rights subcommittee, said at the hearing he will reintroduce legislation shortly entitled the Sean and David Goldman Child Abduction Prevention and Return Act to close the loophole.

“The United States will not tolerate child abduction or have patience with countries that hide abductors,” Smith said. “The bill would empower the president and Department of State with new tools and I would say necessary tools and authorities to secure the return of abducted American children.”

The bill is named after Monmouth County resident David Goldman, who fought five years to bring back his son from Brazil.

He also spoke at Thursday’s hearing.

“They are like combat troops sent into battle with no weapons or ammunition,” Goldman said of the current practice from United States officials to retain abducted children.“The plain fact is that nations who refuse to return America’s children pay no price for defying the law, and unless we arm the state department with the tools they need to do their job and unless nations who break the law flagrantly and repeatedly suffer real consequences, nothing will change.”

Smith’s bill will allow the president to respond with a range of 18 actions and penalties when a country shows a pattern of non-cooperation.

“Based on past experience—particularly with the Goldman case in Brazil, we know that penalties manage to get the attention of other governments, and help them prioritize resolution,” Smith said. “The bill also calls for the state department to work out memorandums of understanding with countries that have not signed the Hague Convention in order to create agreed-upon routes to abduction resolution between countries, rather than the never-ending and torturous maze American are currently forced to run.”

The plan for Jacob to abduct the children was orchestrated well in advance, Philips said at the hearing.

When she returned to her Plainsboro home in April 2009, Philips discovered Jacob arranged for all of the family’s belongings to be removed while they were in India.

“He took everything, leaving me not with a single photograph of my children,” she said, adding Jacob left her with a financial burden by not paying the mortgage or utilities. “Heartbroken and impoverished, I had to start from scratch.”

A month prior to the trip in India, Jacob said her ex-husband, who now has federal criminal charges lodged against him, obtained status for him and the children to stay for an extended period of time in the foreign country.

“The investigation reports from the Plainsboro Police station show that he had planned the move to India as early as March 2008,” Jacob said of her ex-husband, who has since remarried. “He had communicated his intentions to the principal of the children’s elementary school without my knowledge.”

Philips has gotten back on her feet financially, saying she initially survived from the graciousness of good people.

She said Jacob continues to file false cases against her and her family in India.

“He believes that if the campaign for harassment becomes too much for me to bare, we will back away from the quest to regain custody of my children,” Philips said, noting Jacob is brainwashing her 12-year-old sons against her. “He must learn that this will not happen. He must be held accountable for his actions.”